


So you're gone and I'm haunted

by Mallockee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, And Niall likes to rap in spanish, Harry is messed up, Louis is sunshine, M/M, Spy!AU, Violence, lack of Capitals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:57:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mallockee/pseuds/Mallockee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>harry gets his orders and he follows. he doesn’t ask any questions. he picks up the gun, he jumps out the plane, he keeps his head down. everytime he promises that this will be the last time, this will be it, and then he can go home and pretend that he has never killed and enjoyed it. and everytime is just like the last and the next. his world is a paradox that burns him to the bone.</p>
<p>he can’t despise it because by doing that, he despises what he truly is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. {0800, southern America, exact location unknown}

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this idea for a while and I have a lot of feelings about this pairing. BIg shout out to my main ladies - MareBear (teashire) and Dakotz (louisful) who are both perfect and will forever call my accent cute. This is a sad one, guys. Feedback is always appreciated. Title from 'Almost Lover' by A Fine Frenzy.

_law fourteen: stay organised, stay one step ahead, stay alive._

harry gets his orders and he follows. he doesn’t ask any questions. he picks up the gun, he jumps out the plane, he keeps his head down. everytime he promises that this will be the last time, this will be it, and then he can go home and pretend that he has never killed and enjoyed it. and everytime is just like the last and the next. his world is a paradox that burns him to the bone.

he can’t despise it because by doing that, he despises what he truly is.

this time is no different and he rescues the princess or whoever he is meant to. the girl doesn’t interest him anymore. people don’t interest him in general and that should scare him but he can’t quite bring himself to care because these are just his feelings and he knows exactly where they are in the brain and he’s seen that particular part of the brain blown into oblivion more times than he would really like to think about.

he can’t despise it because by doing that, he despises what he has truly become.

once the girl, snivelling and dripping with gratitude, is into the helicopter and they begin to fly home, the news flicks on over the intercom and he wants to ask the pilot to turn it off but it’s the pilot who so kindly flew them here and it’s the pilot who will fly them home and so he sits back and listens to how the world is breaking around him.

he can’t despise it because by doing that, he despises what he truly always has been.


	2. {1600, southern England, London}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *inserts a team music* My chapters are shockingly short, I know. Sorry guys.

_law sixteen: payback may be long in coming but it always arrives._

harry wanders aimlessly through the streets, following orders as he was trained to. once, gemma read to him from a book, told him about a character that reminded her a bit of him. he’d laughed it off until later that night, when he’d gone and looked through the book and decided that being this character would be too bad. jude mcgregor, or whoever, was a terrorist but he believed in what he was doing. he believed in the cause. and aged seven, with parents who suddenly weren’t _mumanddad_ but mum _and_ dad, he didn’t have a cause to fight for. he thought that he’d quite like to be jude. and jude even came with a laws to follow. so he followed them.

gemma died a long time ago, along with his mum and stepdad and it’s taken this long to find out who killed them. he can’t do this alone, although he’ll never admit that, and he’s already asked for a few spare agents to help him. the higher powers agreed. probably because he’s the most dedicated and skilled intelligence officer the british intelligence service has ever seen and his higher officers know that if they don’t let him go officially, he’ll go anyway. and the killing won’t be clean and professional, and he won’t be able to guarantee there being no use of torture.

his team is small, just four other men, but he’s been assured they are the best out there. they have a little time before they are all free, but once they are, they will be free to go. free to kill, like the good intelligence officers they are.


	3. {1100, southern ireland, county offaly}

_law three: watch your back._

they meet up less than a week after the initial letters are sent to them and they aren’t what he’s expecting.

then again, his whole life isn’t what he’s expected.

niall is their language specialist, who can speaks about five different languages and can write them just as well. he’s from Ireland originally, and not the side that’s too chummy with England either, but he’s been trained enough to drop the accent and adopt one that makes him the same as the others. he’s shorter than harry, stocky, blue eyed and blonde with a grin that makes old ladies hand over sweets and young girls blush and turn away. he can charm the back legs off a donkey and it’s unsurprising that he can hold his own in a fight, better than you’d think.

zayn is the it guy, the quarter master, the one they call ‘q’. he sets them all up with the latest equipment and gadgetry and the weapons are so fast and sleek every guy seems to gain a hard-on just from holding a tiny handgun. he’s leaner than the rest with glasses that are either perched on the end of his nose or leaning gently against his stupidly quiffed hair and better hidden muscle and there are tattoos across his body that help him blend in just that little bit more. harry stares a little because these tattoos make him want to get more, make him want to mark his skin in more ways than he has already. he’s got an a in the very crease of his elbow for his mum, an iced gem on the underside of his left arm for gemma and he’s also got gemma’s name in Hebrew on the side of his arm. it’s as much as he’s ever dared to get but the way zayn has designs that seem almost spur of the moment makes his skin almost ache to feel the sting and the burn of the needle pushing the ink into his system, to stay there forever.

liam is the procurement man, but they all think of him as the one who picks up the fall and makes sure they all are ready for d-day. he sorts out false names and housing and transport and all the things harry never really thought about but are really essential. he stays up until the early hours of the morning, slumped at his laptop, making up backgrounds for the other boys to learn and trying hard not to make them anymore noticeable than they already are. his hair is short, a buzz cut, making him look a lot more military than the rest of them. and he does. he looks so much like a soldier, with the muscle that outranks even harry and the way he seems to know the others better than they know themselves, even after such a short time. it’s funny really, how he’d try so hard not to be involved in the fighting or violence, and how he looked like he was just out of Afghanistan.

harry gets on with all of them. all of them in each of their separate ways. he stayed up with liam, finialising plans and assuring him that nothing would go wrong. he’d let niall try and teach him whatever language he wanted, but really learnt nothing apart from the fact that niall could talk for all nations under the sun and never run out of topics. and he’d box with zayn until they were both panting and sweating and grinning madly.

he’s never had brothers. but these three are close, closer than they should be but he can’t quite bring himself to pull away, the way he’s always taught himself.

and then, a few days later, hell arrives in the beautiful package of louis.

louis is shorter than the rest of them with caramel whipped hair that rivals zayn’s in a quiff. but sometimes it doesn’t and instead it lays across his forehead in a fringe that seeming defies all gravitational laws. his eyes are blue but not the blue of niall’s. his are warmer, like an Italian sea, whereas niall’s are like blue ice. louis has skin like someone’s poured brown sugar over him and melted it gently, letting the colour and the sweetness seep into his skin. and when he smiles, it’s like someone poured tippex over his mouth.

louis is the only other intelligence officer in the whole arrangement. that sets off the tiny anger responses in harry’s mind, the ones that sing dangerbetrayalhatred and he can’t help his eyes from narrowing. he knows that louis is essential but at the same time, he hates him. this is his mission, his retribution and his revenge. not louis’. this whole thing was the brain child of harry and couldn’t work without him. but the same could be said for louis.

he knew it was wrong to hate louis, but he did anyway.

louis was sunny and serious, fun and able to negotiate, a walking paradox that somehow managed to get into harry’s head and into his thoughts. but louis somehow misinterprets his cold looks and silences when he entered the room. he helped liam _with harry_ , he learnt obscure languages with niall _and harry_ and he fought zayn _with fucking harry._

it was like harry was the sun and louis orbited around him. but what about when harry didn’t want a planet to orbit him? when harry didn’t want anyone to orbit him? all he wanted to be alone.

and yet.

sometimes, louis would give him a look from behind his glasses and all harry wanted to do was blush and turn away. or when it came to food, louis would insist he was full and give his left overs to harry. or he’d sit close to harry at night, share the blankets between them and warm harry’s cold toes. but he didn’t. he never even smiled at louis. he wanted to. he wanted to smile and laugh and agree and have private jokes with louis. but he didn’t. louis was just another officer that he had to work with. he wasn’t the first. he wouldn’t be the last.

but that wasn’t true. because if this mission went wrong, if any one of them slipped up, they would all die. and then harry would die alongside louis.

and it was worrying just how much it bothered harry, the idea of louis dying.


	4. {1437, northern ukraine, syrnytsya}

_law thirteen: staying focused requires more than keen eyesight._

liam gets the call on a rainy sunday and they move.

the jet is loaded and they move within twenty minutes of getting the call. it may be two a.m. in the morning but they are members of her majesty’s secret service. they are always ready.

harry almost feels like cracking the joke that they don’t sleep, _they wait_ but he’s never one to crack jokes and to be honest, since he was seven and came home to find his family dead, he hasn’t slept. not a full night in over fourteen years. he has waited for this moment for almost the whole of his life.

they file into the aircraft in single file, all the banter and laughter from a few hours before completely gone. niall had attempted to teach them a rap in Spanish, which had gone horrifically, much to liam’s amusement. he’s laughed at zayn who had put hand gestures to this untranslatable garble and still somehow attempted to look cool. louis was laughing too, just not as much. he was hunched over his mac, one ear listening to the conversation with the rest of him focusing on the darkened screen in front of him. he’d sat next to harry, two of them in a space that harry would have preferred to have sat alone in, their elbows brushing every now and again as louis started to type something and then deleted the lot.

harry was silent, as always. he didn’t want to get himself involved in the group. he wasn’t really a people person. he just did the job. until he looked over at louis’ screen and saw the line louis kept deleting over and over.

he knew louis had a family. he assumed they all did, their files hadn’t mentioned any care or foster homes. but louis just had that glow of love around him. that glow that harry had probably had when he was younger. but that was another matter.

_dear mum,_

_hope everything’s great and i hope fizz’s appointment with the orthodontist went well. give the twins kisses from me and tell them i’ll bring them something to make up for missing their birthdays. i’m off doing another job, one of those i’m not allowed to tell you about but i don’t want you to worry. tell the girls that the weather here is cold and nasty and i miss your cooking more than i let on. if you could send me some chicken pie, i’d be eternally grateful._

_i’ve got some friends with me on this trip, i think you’d really like them. i’m not allowed to give you any names but there are four of us. i’m pretty close to all of them, one especially but there is no way i’m giving you or lottie his name ;), and i’m really glad we’re all together._

harry had smiled a little, despite himself. even in email, louis could be somehow endearing. but he didn’t wonder about who louis was especially close too. it wasn’t  him. it didn’t concern him.

_mum, if you don’t hear from me again, i love you so much and i’m sorry i barely tell you._

and then louis hit the backspace button, making the letters fly off screen. harry knew louis was watching him, watching him pour his soul out into this email, possibly the last thing his mother would read from him.

the last thing harry’s mother had read from him was a school report that presented him as stupid, lazy and never amounting to anything.

harry looked up gently, watched louis’ eyes watch him. he could never read people’s emotions in their eyes, it was never a skill he’d acquired, so he couldn’t say what the emotion was in louis’ eyes as he looked at him. but he knew that this sort of area was completely out of his emotional range. he didn’t know how to make louis feel better. he couldn’t reassure him. he couldn’t just smile and everything would be better. he didn’t know how to. and for the first time in fourteen years, he wanted to. he wanted to make someone feel better and loved and not completely hopeless.

with that in mind, harry gently leaned over, never once breaking eye contact and took the laptop off louis. he was met with no resistance, louis was too shocked to react and harry was hoping to take full advantage of that. he put it on his own lap and turned  his eyes to face the screen. gently, allowing louis to stop him if he wanted to, harry’s fingers flitted over the keys.

_you might not hear from me for a while, but i don’t want you to worry. i’ll be fine, i always am. give my love to the kids._

_i love you lots._

_louis xx_

harry gave the mac back, placed it gently on louis’ soft fabric covered thighs and focused solely on the conversation between the others. 


	5. {1834, northern ukraine, on foot}

_law ten: keep your blood hot and your heart cold._

liam has them stay in a farmer’s barn, just off the main road. harry doesn’t like it and speaks up, spouting safety risks and the inability to hide their tracks. he’s ignored, by everyone and it makes him angry. he hasn’t felt anger like this in a long time. it’s not the sort of fury he feels when he remembers coming home to finding gemma on the floor of her bedroom, school skirt around her chest and knickers ripped by her ankles. even at seven years old, he’d known that the man who’d put the bullet between her eyes had done a lot worse to her before hand.

this anger is quick and like fire and it makes him grab the collar of liam’s jumpsuit and hold him against the old stone wall. he needs to see, he needs to _understand_ that this isn’t just a jaunt and harry won’t walk away from this as the same person. the other boys might but harry is here to kill the men who killed his mum and raped his sister.

zayn’s arms wrap around him from behind and niall pulls at his feet and between them they pin harry to the ground. louis is at liam’s side, hands almost _stroking_ the taller boy’s neck and the white hot flame of anger shoots through harry again. it doesn’t make sense this time, but it doesn’t matter. feelings are stupid. his mother felt and look what happened to her. revenge is the only emotion worth having. it drives us onwards. some say that our lives are defined by the sum of our choices, but it isn’t our choices that distinguish who we are. it’s our commitment to them.

when he’s stopped moving and closed his eyes, the other lads get off harry and let him up. he apologises, robotically, to liam who just nods. louis is watching him with these big and tired eyes and harry has had just about enough. but he’s so close. he can almost taste the satisfaction of killing his oldest enemies. so he listens again to the plan and looks away from this boy who is so scared of leaving his family alone.

somehow zayn has found where he thinks this small branch of the mafia are (and it makes harry want to laugh because the ukranian _mafia_? attacking a small family in chesire?) and they plan to surround and infiltrate it. it’s hardly ideal when there’s five of them outside and an infinite number of mafia members inside. and they may have grown up in places that were cold but nowhere is as cold as this hell hole. the mafia are equipped for this sort of weather and they aren’t. all they’ve got are some snow jackets and waterproof navy jumpsuits. not even white jumpsuits. trust the british to go for style over practicality.

they’re going in and they’re going to get the man who killed harry’s family. liam knows who it is, through his contacts and he hasn’t told harry. the longer you know someone’s name, the more guilty you feel about a kill; at least that’s what harry’s found. it’s different to kill someone with a name and a future and a life than it is to kill the man who’s aiming a gun at your head. harry’s thankful that liam didn’t ask for this analysis, because it’s one of those things that suggests harry feels anything but a desire for revenge.

the others are going to ‘deal with the insurgents that aren’t styles’ main prerogative’. louis snorted at that and looked back to his netbook. he left the mac in the carrier and now he’s incessantly tapping on the tiny computer all hours of the day. he’s not replying to his family because there’s no wifi here. harry can just tell that in the middle of winter in some corner of Ukraine, there isn’t any wifi. unless the mafia have it. maybe then louis can log on and reply before he gets his head blown off by the mafia.

liam carries on and suggests the use of tasers. they’ve all got at least one stashed on the belts of their jumpsuits, black and sleek. he reiterates that on no occasion do they kill any of the mafia members. he says that it’s bad enough they’re ambushing the camp, it’s bad enough styles is going to kill the chief, they should make as little casulaties as possible. harry zones out at that point because he’s the exception. he gets to kill and it doesn’t matter what liam says now. his eyes stray to louis. the boy is listening intently, it seems – until harry looks at his hands. they’re flying over the keys and making very little noise; they are pretty much muffled by the sound of the generator zayn’s set up to power the gadgets. he nods every now and then, fingers still flying across the keyboard. he must sense harry’s eyes on him because his eyes slide sideways once or twice. the blue never meets green though. it’s just a little off.


	6. {0113, northern Ukraine, derelict barn}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there. Well done, for getting this far.

_law four: caring equals vulnerability. never show either._

the rest of the boys try and get off to sleep around eleven, local time. harry can’t. he doesn’t really sleep, per se. the alcohol always gives him a buzz in the back of his head that he can never really get rid of this late at night. when he can catch up with nick, he gets some pills too. his eyes trick him then, and he can see his mum. anne with her laugh and her cooking and the way she used to look after a hard day at work. harry would always try to cheer her up on those days and even a little smile would be enough. if the pills are strong enough, he’ll see gemma too. but he never sees gemma as he’d like to. he sees her in the morgue. pale, blue lips and carefully brushed fringe to cover the hole in between her brows. harry had taken her hand and kissed it, his foster mother sniffling behind him. she’d pulled him away then and he’s thrashed in her arms, screaming for his sister, his mother, anyone.

he’d woken up in a starch-sheet bed, that scratched on his arms and legs. he didn’t sleep properly after that. never had.

the night air is cold enough for harry to have on all the kit he’ll be wearing tomorrow. he’s sat by the hedge that leads onto the main road. well, as main as the roads are in this place. it’s a dirt track really, that is only suitable for pony carts or tractors. they walked here, that’s saying something. a cigarette in one hand and a flask of brandy in the other. he’s warm now and his senses are just slightly impaired. not impaired enough to make him turn around the minute the barn doors open.

louis steps out into the cold air, eyes sleepy and warm. he’s dressed identically to harry, snow jacket and jumpsuit but there’s a different air around him. softer. harry’s always been ice and louis is this gentle fire, almost gone out but just enough to give a little bit of heat, the coals that carry on smouldering once the fire’s almost gone.

“i’m sorry, i didn’t know you were out here.” louis’ voice is quiet in the night air and it makes a slight puff of air that’s lighter than the smoke coming from the stick between harry’s fingers. it makes a cloud between the stars and in a split second, a puff of air looks like a nebula to harry. he shakes his head, the long curls around his face for a minute before they get pulled back from his eyes.

“i don’t own ‘out here’.” the cigarette makes harry’s voice a little huskier, biting as the wind and anyone who didn’t know him could mistake the gravel in his tone as arousal. “i assumed you’d be asleep. you should go back inside, it’s cold.”

“need to talk to you.” comes the quick but quiet reply, one that makes harry look to the smaller man with a raised eyebrow. unlike himself, louis is dressed in a thick parka that’s lined with a synthetic fur that can’t be all that comfortable. harry can’t see what’s underneath, or below the coat because suddenly louis’ very close to him, having taken the two steps in the snow to come face to face with harry.

“you’re an enigma, harry styles.” he murmurs, eyes so blue and bright against the dark of the night and the lights of the stars and harry can almost taste the way louis rolls his name around those perfect little lips. he wonders what it would be like to run his tongue over the cupid’s bow and the full bottom lip that’s closer now than a pair of lips have been in a long time.

“one i wouldn’t mind unravelling.” louis says in the same soft tone and he almost looks scared that harry’s going to push him back and who is harry to do anything but take the front of louis’ parka and pull him in for a harsh kiss, forcing him to taste the smoke and alcohol and pure regret. 


End file.
